


Wolves and Girls

by candyvan



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Arranged Marriage, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-27
Updated: 2015-03-27
Packaged: 2018-03-19 21:20:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3624666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/candyvan/pseuds/candyvan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arya is forced to marry Lord Renly. A scene minutes before her wedding.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wolves and Girls

“Please, stop fidgeting,” her mother begs, voice exhausted and weary. Arya stills at the tone, hating the way her mother's eyes catch in the candlelight. They look like there's a film over them, as if, at any moment, a tear will fall and break a carefully constructed dam. “I'm almost done.”

Arya tries to not jerk away from the ornate braid her mother is plaiting, but every inch of hair that's tugged into place feels like a chain, getting tighter and tighter around her neck and trapping her in this castle forever. She looks past the mirror and out the window, watching the sun set low behind the trees. She wishes desperately for the snow covered ferns of the North, the chill that would bite at her cheeks. Here, she is so pale that Sansa has to pat them with a pink powder to keep her from looking like a corpse.

It feels both too long and too soon before her mother finishes, tying the hair off with a silk ribbon that tickles against the back of her neck.

“There,” she says, voice cracking. Arya flinches at it. “You look beautiful, my love.”

Arya knows she's supposed to say thank you but the words won't form on her tongue, the muscle cut from her body. She stays silent, unmoving, as her mother meets her gaze in the mirror. She's unsure which of them looks to be more in pain, but in the end her mother is the winner. Arya looks too numb whereas her mother looks as if someone has just speared her, is slowly twisting the knife in her gut each second she looks at Arya.

She turns away.

“It won't be so bad,” Catelyn says, like she's assuring herself. “Your father says you're to visit at least three times a year.”

Her eyes clench tight in pain. Three times a year? The promise does nothing to make her feel better. She's going to become a stranger in hallways she used to roam freely. Of course, her husband _says_ she may visit now, but words can always be twisted into lies and promises may always be broken. Who knows? In a years time, she may even forget what Winterfell looks like.

“Lord Renly is a good man. I promise you, that, Arya,” she swears. “He'll be a good husband to you.”

Arya feels sick. They raised her to bear her teeth as a wolf and now expect her to smile as a lady. It's crueler than even the harshest of Winters.

Sansa enters the room, and although she is smiling, it looks forced. Her lovely blue eyes are ringed red, unsurprisingly. She's round with her second child, and everyone knows how much her sister cries when she's pregnant.

“Everyone is ready,” her sister says. “Father would like to see you, mother.”

Catelyn nods, thankful for the reprieve. With one last, soulful look, she leaves her two daughters alone in the quiet of the room.

Arya wishes she could be young again, when tripping and skinning her knee was the worst thing that happened to her, when ideas such as marriage seemed far away and impossible. She feels too old, despite only being one and six.

It's quiet for a long moment, the silence only broken by a bird chirping outside.

“Whenever I pictured this day, you were always in chains,” Sansa smiles sadly. She crosses the room and kneels in front of Arya, a hand resting on her stomach. “Snarling and biting at anyone who tried to force you to the alter. I always just assumed father wouldn't make you do this, that he'd find a way. Bend the rules. Let you stay at Winterfell forever.”

Arya doesn't have strength to tell her sister how many times she ran away, only to be dragged home by Jory or Rob or even in one case father himself. She punched and kicked and bit and gave Rob at least three black eyes. She refused to respond, to eat, to move, and she laid in bed for weeks, hoping that if she refused hard enough, father would take back the promise of her hand. No such thing happened.

She's fought hard enough and to no avail. She's so tired of fighting. She wishes now that she spent that last month in Winterfell out in the snow until the cold seeped into her bones where she could keep it there forever.

“Is it scary?” Arya finds herself asking. Her voice is rough from disuse.

“What?” Sansa asks, startled by the question. She hasn't spoken a word since they met on the road here, no matter how many times Sansa tried to start a conversation.

“Not being a Stark anymore,” Arya clarifies. She turns to meet her sisters eyes. “Is it scary?”

“Oh, Arya,” Sansa breathes, heartbroken. “You'll always be a Stark, and so will your children.”

She flinches at the idea of children, forced to be a brood mare for some lord she's met but once.

“Not in name,” she says, sounding like a babe. “Not in place. I hate it here.”

“I didn't like Highgarden much, at first,” Sansa admits, to the surprise of Arya. In all of her sister's letters, Sansa only said good thing about her new home. “It was gorgeous, of course, but it was too sweet. There are flowers all over, year round, and the only reprieve from the sun is at night. I missed cuddling into my furs on cold nights and sitting by the fire while mother sewed and, oh, Arya, I think I missed you most of all.” Now her sister is crying, running a hand soothingly along her torso. “There is no one like you in Highgarden. I doubt there is anyone like you in all the world.”

Arya scoffs, sounding the most like herself in weeks. Sansa brightens at the noise, only to dim as Arya bites, “Look at me,” she pulls at her white dress so tightly the seams crack, “I'm not so different from all of the other silly girls of Westeros! No matter how much I played with a sword or rolled in the dirt or missed lessons with our Septa, they still have me here.”

“Do you know why?” Sansa asks gently. Arya doesn't reply. “ _Family, duty, honor_. We are Starks but we have Tully blood, and your children will be stags only in name. You will teach them to thrive in the Winter and frolic in the Summer, but they will not be nearly half as strong as you are.”

“Or you,” Arya says, quiet.

Her sister leans up and kisses her on the forehead, and Arya wishes fiercely that she did not waste their years together pulling at her sister's hair.

The door opens and her mother is there, looking as if her heart has just been broken in two. Arya wants to ask if this is how she felt on her betrothal day, but the words don't form in her throat. She can't stop herself from running, throwing herself into her mother's body and soaking in the warmth and love that encircles her.

“It's time,” her mother whispers fiercely in her hair. “Tell me, now, and I promise I will have a horse waiting for you out the back. Tell me no and you won't ever have to do this.”

Family, duty, honor. Arya hugs her mother tight.

She doesn't tell her no.


End file.
